Urban Nomads Ati & Alex

Travelling and really getting to know the country – not only hotel resorts and pedestrian areas… This is what Alexandra and Atahan had in mind when they started indy-guide.com . The two nomads at heart created this platform to allow independent travelers booking adventurous and alternative tours in all over Central Asia, thus obviously Kyrgyzstan, too. On the other hand, local travel agents and guides can use the platform as a simple way to offer their services to travelers from all over the world.

Surely you guys have travelled a lot yourselves already – was fascinates you guys so much about Central Asia?Mostly, we are fascinated by the people and their culture. While travelling through remote areas of the region, we experienced a level of hospitality. It is so unpretentious and pure. Material wealth is totally irrelevant at this stage: People opened their doors to us without knowing who we are or where we come from. They put their best food on the table for us and let us crash in their sleeping room. A lack of infrastructure and language barriers may be a challenge, but they surely provide the proper travel spirit. Even though not everything is available, everything will be made possible!

And of course there are these stunning landscapes that make you feel free at an instant. Nature in Central Asia is very diverse, but always up high: Kyrgyzstan is on average around 4000m high! Along the paths of the silk road you can sense the acient flair of the orient and far east.

Do you guys consider yourselves some type of modern nomads?The lifestyle of the nomads indeed impressed us strongly. This way of living close to mother nature, limited to the essentials, the feeling of being home anywhere and the the discplined attitude towards work – yea, that’s something we are striving for too!

How does a working day at Indy Guide look like?Indy Guide is still young and small, we are building it up step by step. Nonetheless our popularity with local tour guides is quite high already. Now we are targeting the travelers.WWe got to know many guides personally while we were staying in Central Asia, we are in contact with around 500 of them. We want to transfer this trust to our customers to enable a unique and comfortable travel experience.

How often do you travel yourselves?As often as possible. After living around one year in Central Asia and Mongolia we build our base camp in Switzerland. From here we would like to set out on journeys a few times per year. That’s also what motivated us to create a travel platform.

Do you make money with Indy Guide and can you live of it?This project mainly aims at promoting Central Asia as travel destination. So many people in western countries can barely imagine what to expect here. Personally we could not live of the money generated through Indy Guide, but we are lucky enough that we do not have to. It is mostly passion that makes us do what we do. And the positive feedback we get from all sides.

Where do you know KANCHA from?We first read about KANCHA through facebook. The philosophy and principles of KANCHA convinced us immediately. We share similar goals,that’s why we are very happy to get to know you guys!